Jakarta Globe – AFP, Jan 03, 2015
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| An Indonesian Air Force official shows a map to journalists of the search area for the missing Malaysian air carrier AirAsia flight QZ8501, at the airport in Surabaya, East Java, on Dec. 29, 2014. (AFP Photo/Juni Kriswanto) |
Jakarta.
The AirAsia plane that crashed off Indonesia was flying on an unauthorised
schedule, the country’s transport ministry said on Saturday, adding it had now
frozen the airline’s permission to fly the route.
As two
large parts of the plane were found on the sea bed late on Friday by the
international search team, director general of air transport Djoko Murjatmodjo
said the doomed airliner’s flight time had not been cleared by officials.
Flight 8501
crashed into the Java Sea with 162 people on board en route from Indonesia’s
second city Surabaya to Singapore early on Sunday.
“It
violated the route permit given, the schedule given, that’s the problem,” he
told AFP. “AirAsia’s permit for the route has been frozen because it violated
the route permit given.”
He said the
permit would be frozen until investigations were completed.
A statement
from transport ministry spokesman JA Barata said AirAsia was not permitted to
fly the Surabaya-Singapore route on Sundays and had not asked to change its
schedule.
It was
unclear how the airliner had been able to fly without the necessary
authorisation.
The plane
was operated by AirAsia Indonesia, a unit of Malaysia-based AirAsia, which
previously had a solid safety record.
On
Saturday, the head of Indonesia’s search and rescue agency said that two large
parts of the plane had been found in the search area at depth of around 30m,
raising hopes that its black boxes will be recovered soon.
Bambang
Soelistyo told reporters in Jakarta that the multinational search team came
across the objects off the island of Borneo late on Friday night.
“With the
discovery of an oil spill and two big parts of the aircraft, I can assure you
these are the parts of the AirAsia plane we have been looking for,” Soelistyo
said.
He said the
larger of the objects was around 10m x 5m.
“As I speak
we are lowering an ROV [remotely operated underwater vehicle] underwater to get
an actual picture of the objects detected on the sea floor. All are at the
depth of 30 metres,” Soelistyo said.
He added
however that a strong current was making it difficult to operate the ROV.
The
families of victims have been preparing funerals as the bodies recovered are
identified in Surabaya, where a crisis centre has been set up at a police
hospital with facilities to store 150 bodies.
Before
take-off, the pilot of Flight 8501 had asked for permission to fly at a higher
altitude to avoid a storm, but the request was not approved due to other planes
above him on the popular route, according to AirNav, Indonesia’s air traffic
control.
In his last
communication shortly before all contact was lost, he said he wanted to change
course to avoid the menacing storm system.
Agence France-Presse
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The
country's transport ministry said the ill-fated aircraft had been flying on
an
unauthorised schedule when it crashed, and the airline has now been suspended
from flying the route from the city of Surabaya to Singapore. (AFP
Photo/
Manan Vatsyayana)
|
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